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Updated: May 9, 2025
Two mocking-birds, one perched on the chimney-stack of the house, and the other on a straggling spray of the wild-orange hedge, vied with each other in imitating the medley of bird-language which made the air vocal on every side, pouring a rich flood of melody through the open windows and into the appreciative ears of the ladies who sat within.
This he lifted, and, fixing around a chimney-stack a strong silk rope he had brought in his pocket ready for any emergency, he threw it down the opening, and quickly lowered himself through. Scarcely had he done so, and was standing on the uncarpeted stairs, when his quick ear caught the sound of Deacon's footsteps receding over the gravel around to the front of the house.
The shape of a doorknocker, the grouping of an old chimney-stack, the crack, still there, in a flagstone somewhere deep in the past these things had associations; but they lay very deep, and the disturbing of them gave Romarin a curious, desolate feeling, as of returning to things he had long out-grown.
The horizontal spar pointed down the street. Slowly the men worked round with the ropes, and slowly the point of the pole turned in the direction of the chimney-stack and its forlorn burden. There was room and to spare for the process in the wide gap made by the tumbled house. The crowd held its breath.
With ocean alacrity some round shot were got up, a gun was fired point-blank at Labour's Retreat, and down came a chimney-stack, amidst the cheers of the crew of the Tom Bowling. "Now, then," roared old Joe, "over with our boat, lads, and board 'em! Tommy, stay you here and let go the anchor"; and in a very few minutes Plum and Robins were pulling Joe Westlake ashore.
In the heart of the press the light of a dozen torches shone on half as many riders mailed and armed; whose eyes, as they moved on, and the furious gleaming eyes of the rabble about them, never left the gabled roofs on their right. On these from time to time a white-clad figure showed itself, and passed from chimney-stack to chimney- stack, or, stooping low, ran along the parapet.
"See now," he muttered, "if I still go upward I may come out at the top of some tall chimney-stack with no way of getting down outside. Now, below here there must be a fire-place somewhere, for a chimney does not start from nothing at all; yes, good! we will go down a while and see what we make of that." It was a crooked, zigzag road that he had to travel, and rough and hard into the bargain.
The white jalousies seem always closed, the grass on the lawns seems never cut, and the whole establishments have a pathetically deserted appearance to the passer-by. A feature of this part of the country can scarcely be believed without actually using one's eyes. It is the wooden chimney-stack, covered with oak shingles, that surmounts the roofs of most of the cottages.
He adjusted the planes, so as to make a gradual descent while the engine still enabled him to keep way on the machine, and it sank into the mist. Both men kept a sharp look-out, knowing well that to encounter a branch of a tree or a chimney-stack might at any moment bring the voyage, the aeroplane, and themselves to an untimely end.
At first, I made for the garret, but presently thought to myself: 'No; they would soon find me there, and put me to an end as well, for I am the heir direct, and should be the first to succeed to the property. So I crawled on to the roof, and there lay hidden behind the chimney-stack, holding on with arms and legs, while unable to speak for sheer terror."
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